The Wizards have rode some young offensive star power in Wall and Beal and some excellent overall defense with Nene in the fold to some moderate success in the dreadful Eastern Conference, and with all of those pieces in place, Washington would have at least a puncher's chance of emerging from the mix of teams like the Raptors, Bulls, Nets, Hawks and Bobcats in the second round. Washington currently ranks fourth in the league with a defensive rebound rate of 76.1 (meaning they grab 76.1% of available defensive rebounds and give up 23.9% of those opportunities to the opposing offensive rebounding team), and that number actually jumps to 78.0 with Nene on the court.īut with Nene sitting down, the team's defensive rebound rate drops to an underwhelming 73.9, which would match the Jazz and Pistons in a tie for 18th.Īnd while four of the team's next six games come against the tanking Magic, 76ers, Jazz and Bucks, the Wizards will follow that up with 12 straight games either against playoff teams or on the road to take them into April. In addition to providing the kind defensive paint presence and mobility that no one else on the roster possesses, having Nene on the floor seems to help the Wizards' defensive rebounding as well, and you obviously can't be a solid defensive team without securing defensive stops with the rebounding of the ball. Their porous mark of 105.7 with Nene off the floor, on the other hand, would rank tied for 24th with Sacramento (Washington ranks ninth overall with a 102.0 defensive rating). With Nene on the floor, Washington's defensive rating of 99.0 would rank third in the NBA as one of only five teams to allow less than one point per possession. Washington's offense produces at exactly the same rate (101.8 points per 100 possessions) regardless of whether Nene is on the court or off, according to NBA.com's stats database, but their defense gives up an extra 6.7 points per 100 possessions with the Brazilian out. You can look at the big Nene-less picture, where the Wizards have gone 8-34 in 42 games without the big man since trading for him late in the lockout-shortened 2011-12 season and where the team is outscored by 3.3 points when Nene is on the bench this season compared to outscoring their opponents by 3.2 when he's on the court, but the real devil is in the defensive details. To accomplish that, the Wizards are going to need to play at least somewhat respectable defense, and without Nene patrolling the paint and surrounding areas, that becomes near impossible. 500 basketball the rest of the way if they want a chance to finish with an all-important top-six seed and any chance in hell of winning a series. Between John Wall, Bradley Beal, Marcin Gortat and Trevor Ariza (and even recently acquired Andre Miller), the Wizards should still have enough talent to keep their heads above water in the 'race' to finish in the East's top-eight, but they'd likely have to play about.
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